News

You are here

The Washington Post: Opponents of gerrymandering keep winning, but it might not affect 2018

Robert Barnes

Feb 4, 2018

Share:

Opponents of gerrymandering have won a historic string of victories in the courts recently, yet millions of voters will cast their ballots this fall in districts that judges have declared to be unconstitutional. Federal courts in Texas, North Carolina and Wisconsin found that either politics or intentional discrimination played an unacceptable role in drawing electoral lines and ordered new districts in place for the 2018 elections. But the Supreme Court stopped them all. The justices are traditionally reluctant to order changes in an election year, for one thing. And they have never thrown out a state’s redistricting plan because they found it so infected with partisan bias that it violates voters’ constitutional rights.

...

The Supreme Court’s action has been frustrating to lawyers involved in the years-long litigation. “A single election under an unconstitutional map is one too many,” Ruth Greenwood, senior legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, said after the court said North Carolina did not immediately have to redraw its congressional map.